Life rushes at you a breakneck speed. Sometimes the essential activities of survival crowd out the more meaningful activities of life. Whereas, survival is an important and reasonable goal, you can’t fulfill your life by merely paying all your bills and keeping your head dry. Haven’t you already asked yourself, “there must be something more to my life than just existing until I die?”

The joy of a fulfilled life is not just a personality trait that some possess and you do not. Joy is not some exclusive emotion meant only for those who are lucky enough to have things go right in their life all the time. Joy is your God-given birthright, your destiny. God intended you to be exceedingly joyful. The key is in understanding how to fulfill your life. In understanding the plan for fulfilling your life, then happiness will be within reach of a simple decision to do that.

Being Relational

When God decided, “let there be light” he decided that his life, albeit perfect, flawless and complete, could not be meaningful without living his life giving to others. God being love itself; it was God’s destiny to give love to others. However, without a vessel to receive and respond to that love, even God could not fulfill that purpose and then feel joy.

You are created as God’s image and so humans, like God, are exceedingly relational beings. We have the same aspirations for joy through fulfilled relations of love. In fact, that’s why the worst form of punishment is solitary confinement. Imagine yourself isolated in a cold dark cell with no one or no thing with which to relate. Such an environment negates your God-given nature for interaction with others.

In a sense, God choosing to create could be thought of as his effort to move beyond the environment of solitary loneliness. Such an environment was inconsistent with his nature to give and receive love. Notice that God’s way to remedy the feeling of isolation and loneliness was to give rather than feel sorry for himself. Wouldn’t it stand to reason that your journey toward joy and fulfillment would follow the same path?

Being Mature

That begins with you on a personal level. In the same way, God had instructed Adam and Eve that they should first “be fruitful,” then multiply and have dominion. That means that your first step toward happiness and fulfillment to is to complete the process of personal growth and spiritual maturity in your relationship with God and in your capacity to extend love toward others.

How do you assess your own level of spiritual maturity? It’s not that hard. A spiritually immature person doesn’t sense others as much as he senses himself. Have you noticed that the more self-absorbed a person becomes, the more unhappy that person seems?

A spiritually mature person, on the other hand, senses the needs of others as much or even more than his own needs. That’s why, in having spiritual maturity, you will find that living for others is second nature. Do you know people like that? Don’t they seem happy all the time? When you are spiritually mature, you can recognize that the truest path toward personal fulfillment is to give of yourself for the sake of others.

Being Love

The heart of the process of spiritual growth is to grow in the capacity to love others. You have to grow in love. This is another important reason we need a vital relationship with God. God is the source of love. In a dynamic relationship, not only should you receive love, but you should give love as well. That is why Jesus said that we should give love to God; “Love God with all your heart, your mind, your soul.” God not only wants to love you, he wants you to love him in return. In such a relationship, your capacity to give love to others will magnify a thousand-fold. If you live in such a way, you will experience the pinnacle of personal fulfillment and joy.

But what if you don’t feel like living that way? “I’m shy” you might say. “I’m not so outgoing,” you might also say. It is most important to understand that it doesn’t start with “feeling,” it starts with a decision. 1 John 4:16 says that “if you live in love, you live in God and God in you.” That means that if you decide to commit actions of love toward others, God will dwell within you and when God starts to dwell within you, you will begin to feel very different; you will begin to feel the heart of love growing from within and when it does it will feel very much like your true self.

This is the foundation for everything else in your life. That is why God told Adam and Eve that before they think of marriage (to multiply) and exert dominion over all things, they should first be fruitful.

Developing a mature and loving heart and committing actions of love for the sake of others is the foundation for a happy self, a happy marriage and family, and a happy and productive lifestyle.